142 THE FOX IN SUMMER 



grass ; when a solemn hush is over the land after 

 the burst of melody which greets the dawn from 

 grove and coppice, and when even that natural 

 ventriloquist, the corncrake, who has been 

 " scraping " incessantly through the night, has 

 ceased his monotonous cry. 



Then is the time to steal down to the covert, and 

 while that glorious glow is still in the East, maybe 

 you shall behold the triumph of Reineke Fuchs. Here 

 he comes, stepping daintily through the wet grass, 

 and trailing, like Achilles, his slain — the good, grey 

 goose held by the neck in his mouth, her body 

 swung across his shoulders, and her drooping pinions 

 brushing the dew ; or perchance Dame Partlet is 

 between his bloody jaws, her breast feathers dropping 

 at every step — a rueful spectacle. 



Have no fears, however, for your own fowl-house 

 or farmyard, if they be close to the covert. Yonder 

 victims have been "lifted" from a far country — you 

 may safely reckon on that; it is almost incredible 

 the distance that a fox will carry a heavy duck or 

 turkey. 



Distrust, then, the complainant whose dwelling is 

 very nigh to a fox covert, when he declares the 

 depredations of the fox to be unceasing ; for, though 

 my fowls roam at large within two hundred yards 

 of a gorse, yet in six years I have lost but one. On 

 one occasion, in a very dry summer, a fox resorted to 

 a neighbouring small plantation, and, stealing out at 

 midday, was seen by my stableman to stalk an old 

 grey cock, whose peculiarly raucous voice had of ttimes 

 " murdered sleep," and was my special abhorrence. 



